Airlines have a chance to emerge from the crisis leaner and greener

TO SEE THE damage from covid-19 to aviation, look up. Where once a criss-cross of vapour trails told of holidaymakers heading for the sun or executives keeping businesses on track, the wide yonder is now a brilliant blue. This year nearly 5bn passengers might have been expected to take to the skies, but the actual number is likely to be only half as big. A fragile recovery is susceptible to new waves of infection. Britain’s imposition this week of a quarantine on passengers returning from Spain is the latest setback. Traffic may not return to 2019 levels until 2024.When it does rebound, the twin priorities should be to put the industry on a sounder financial footing, and to make flying less polluting. For both objectives the way forward is the same: to loosen incumbents’ grip on the skies.